Finance Manager - Property & Assets
Job description
Finance Manager – Property & Assets
Location: Hybrid home working / Didsbury / Manchester
Salary: £49,934 increasing to £51,783 after 6 months
Full Time / 35 hours per week / Permanent
About Us
Southway Housing Trust is a committed and forward-thinking community focused housing association dedicated to providing excellent homes and outstanding customer care. With a vision of Thriving Communities, Southway manages over 6,500 homes across Greater Manchester.
Southway strives to reduce child poverty, loneliness and isolation and increase employment, social connectedness and pride in neighbourhoods. Our REACH values of Respect, Equity, Ambition, Compassion and Honesty reflect Southway’s culture, how we deliver our services, and our relationships with customers, colleagues and partners. Southway values diversity in all aspects of its communities and operations.
Candidates / Role
An exciting opportunity has arisen in the Finance team for a Finance Manager – Property & Assets to lead Southway Group’s financial monitoring of its property and assets programme. This will entail collaborative work with service managers whilst preparing and reporting KPIs to demonstrate performance and driving improvements through internal controls and processes.
You will also have:
- Advanced accounts and general ledger skills.
- Excellent verbal communication skills, able to explain financial information to residents and manage relations with internal customers effectively
- Strong excel skills, with a knowledge of a range of functions and their application.
Your main responsibilities would include:
1. Lead the development of effective reporting tools and financial data reports for the Property Services and Assets Teams to support the provision of good quality information for decision making, including concise written reports for the Executive and others.
2. Regular reporting of key performance indicators to show performance against targets (operational and financial), trends and any risk to Southway including non-compliance, reduced income/spend levels, loss of grant, ensuring escalation where necessary to develop remedial actions.
3. Contrast the results of stock condition surveys to Business Plan assumptions. Prepare and monitor long term budgets based on data from various sources including programme schedules, survey results and data from housing management system. This should outline any slippage, savings, acceleration and overspends, with corresponding impacts on current and future year budgets.
4. Support preparation of programme returns and grant claims to external partners (identifying works, administration and staffing elements), ensuring all data and explanations are evidenced with colleagues before submission.
5. Prepare fixed asset register and general ledger entries using data from the stock investment programme to ensure the accountancy for the capital works costs and related grant are correctly identified for individual properties and components.
6. Prepare budgets for Property Services including analysis of different workstreams (and agree recharges between DLO and the client) to ensure value for money is achieved via operational delivery.
7. Ensure the Finance Apprentice (Property & Assets) liaises productively with budget holders to analyse results and consider actions to deliver effective budgetary control.
8. Identify and drive improvements in processes and procedures which impact the financial performance of the repairs and maintenance service.
9. Assist budget holders to operate an effective system of electronic purchase order and invoice authorisation routines, resolving individual users’ difficulties. Support budget holders to enable them to navigate through the financial processes, including the NOPO report, to improve data integrity and accurately record costs and grant income to be accrued.
10. Provide information to Finance Operations team supporting the preparation of monthly management accounts, annual statutory accounts and other reports as required (e.g. Funders Report) outlining performance and explanations on variances.
11. Provide data analysis in support of the preparation of financial benchmarking indicators.
12. Support the Assistant Director of Finance to prepare reports, quarterly risk certificates and team performance statements.
13. Contribute to projects to identify, implement and embed more efficient operating processes within the Finance Team.
14. Ensure that all staff reporting to the post are trained, appropriately managed and developed in line with the ‘How we work’ performance management scheme. To meet six weekly with staff reports to monitor the achievement of individual targets. Undertake an annual appraisal and personnel development meeting with staff.
15. Undertake any other duties laid down from time to time consistent with the grading of the post.
Closing Date: Monday 13 October 2025
Interview Date: w/c Monday 20 October 2025